How to know if I am grieving effectively?

"Grief is love turned into an eternal missing....It can't be contained in hours or days or minutes." – Rosamund Lupton

What Is Grief?

Grief is a universal, natural emotional response to loss. While often associated with death, grief can arise from any significant loss, such as:

• Loss of a pet

• End of friendships or romantic relationships

• Job loss

• Loss of personal property

• Unfulfilled dreams or hopes for the future

Grief reflects our connection to what we’ve lost and is an essential part of processing and adapting to change.

The Impact of Grief

Grief affects us psychologically, socially, and physically. Click on the arrows next to each of the sections below to understand these effects further.

Psychological Effects:

• Anxiety, fear, and uncertainty

• Anger, guilt, and sorrow

• Depression, despair, and longing

• Obsessive thoughts about the loss

• Emotional "grief spasms"

Social Effects:

Physical Effects:

The Purpose of Grief and Healthy Ways to Grieve

Grief helps us process our feelings, adapt to change, and eventually integrate the loss into our lives. The ultimate goal of grief and mourning is to encourage you to go outside of these reactions to the loss by actively working on adapting to it. The therapeutic purpose of grief and mourning is to get you to the point where you can live with the loss in a healthy manner, after having made the necessary changes to do so.

In order to integrate our grief into a healthy way, we often must embrace the process of addressing grief directly often by fulfilling the following (not necessarily in sequence):

1. To accept the finality of the loss and the change in your relationship with the loss;

2. To acknowledge and express the full range of feelings we experience as a result of the loss that helps us develop a new sense of self;

3. Adjust to our new environment and take on healthy new ways of being in the world without your loved one;

4. Find new people, objects, or activities in which to put the emotional investment that you once placed in your relationship with what was lost.

   
   

Grieving is a deeply personal process and does not follow a strict timeline. It’s about finding a healthy way to live with your loss, while honouring its significance.

“Sometimes it’s okay if the only thing you did today was breathe.” Yumi Sakugawa

How to Support YOUR Grieving Process

Grief reactions are natural responses when you experience a loss and are separated from things you love. Grief responses help us express 3 important things:

1. Our feelings about the loss

2. Our objections to the loss and the desires to undo it and have it not be true

3. The suffering we experience from the impacts of the loss

Grief is unique to each person, and there is no “right” way to grieve. Some steps to help navigate your journey include:

• Allow yourself to feel and express emotions without judgment

• Seek support from friends, family, or a therapist

• Engage in activities that foster connection and healing

• Give yourself permission to grieve in your own way, without needing validation from others (i.e. writing, art, being in nature)

“True comfort in grief is in acknowledging the pain, not in trying to make it go away. Companionship, not correction, is the way forward.”― Megan Devine

Essentially, the purpose of active grief work is to help you appreciate that your loss is real and then to make the necessary internal (psychological) and external (social) change to accommodate this reality. Grieving is an ongoing process of adjustment and growth. It is important to know that we may have our own methods for grieving and it is not necessary for you to have the loss recognized or validated by others in order for you to have permission to grieve.

If you are experiencing the effects of grief and are looking for someone to talk to, then l invite you to reach out to a mental health professional for guidance and support.

References

Devine, Megan, It's Ok That You're Not Ok: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand. Boulder, CO, Sounds True, 2017

Rando, T. (1988). How to go on living when someone you love dies.